In This Issue - May 2019 Newsletter

June marks the end of our first year with Micromeritics and I’m delighted to already see the benefits of being part of a larger company.

A particular highlight has been working with an extended group of scientists and engineers with in-depth knowledge complementary to our own. The Micromeritics portfolio includes instrumentation for measuring properties that directly influence powder flowability including particle size and shape, density, surface area and porosity. With an FT4 Powder Rheometer installed at Micromeritics headquarters in Norcross (USA), and at the newly opened Particle Testing Authority lab in Munich (Germany), everything is in place to implement application research that will further advance our understanding of powder behaviour. Indeed, joint studies of pharmaceutical powders and metal powders for additive manufacturing are already underway.

With customers also already benefiting from a significantly strengthened distributor network I’m looking forward to further growth in the coming year.

Key events from last quarter highlight recent progress in both the practice and theory of powder testing and the importance of both. In February the spotlight was on practice with 60 attendees joining us at Evonik headquarters to learn how one of the world’s leading speciality chemical companies routinely applies the FT4 Powder Rheometer to characterise food, pharmaceutical and chemical products.

Then in April, at a Partec conference which saw presentations from many FT4 users, we were privileged to attend a plenary lecture by Prof Mojtaba Ghadiri from the University of Leeds. “Prof Ghadiri’s talk provided a valuable update on key aspects of the theory of cohesive powder flow in the dynamic flow regime,” said Tim Freeman. “The concept of a virtual formulation laboratory to predict powder properties from a range of measurements is particularly attractive and it is encouraging to see progress towards its realisation by leading academics.”

A new series of webinars will begin on May 29th (15.00 BST) with ‘Working with Powders – How Comprehensive Characterisation can Optimise Your Process’. Hosted by Tim Freeman it provides an introduction to powder flowability and how effective measurement supports better processing. Register for this free event here.

We are also hosting a seminar - ‘Understanding Powders for Additive Manufacturing’ - on 11th June, at the Hilton Metropole, Birmingham, UK. Here the focus will be on the complementary application of particle size, shape and powder flowability measurements and we’ll be joined by experts from Malvern Panalytical, The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) and Ricoh. Click here to register for a free place.

An extensive range of literature is available from our website, including a growing collection of application notes. Click here to access our literature library. The latest addition, ‘Optimising Unit Operations using the FT4 Powder Rheometer’ highlights the value of multi-faceted powder testing and the relevance of different properties to example unit operations, including pneumatic conveying, size reduction and dispensing.

Optimising the use of flow additives is a challenging but critical task, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, so we are pleased to highlight some new research in which the FT4 Powder Rheometer was used to advance understanding in this area. ‘On the mechanism of colloidal silica action to improve flow properties of pharmaceutical excipients’ [D.T.Tran et al] includes detailed analysis of the effect of particle size, loading, surface texture and mixing time and the mechanisms of flow additive action.